Should I cross the picket line?

The largest private-sector strike by U.S. workers in three years came to an apparent end Sunday, with the grocery chain Stop & Shop announcing it had reached a tentative agreement with the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

The union said in a statement that the new contract includes pay increases and “preserves health care and retirement benefits” for members. Neither the chain nor the union released full details on the agreement.
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Stop & Shop said in a statement Sunday that all its employees would be back on the job Monday morning.

Thank you for your 101 Economics seminar. However, it really is not necessary - I do not think you fully read (or perhaps misunderstood what was I referring to in my reference to sharing costs).

Seeing I have successfully obtained a Masters Degree in Economics over 20 years ago your simplistic explanation of supply and demand is unneeded.

I also would hold these employees with a bit more respect (even disagreeing their picketing) to preach at them about the basics of economics.

Sorry if it sounded condescending. I just can't understand why people would push customers to shop at more expensive stores, which lead inflation and thus undermine the ability to save money with lower income.

What I do understand is why you would boycott more expensive stores until they bring their prices in line with more affordable competitors.

A lot of people misunderstand the cost of labor on the products you buy. For most stores, it is very small. I computed the cost impact at Wal Mart (using their annual report and making some assumptions about how much of their labor was hourly) if they raised the salary from $10/hr to $15/hr and it was between 1% and 2%. It is probably similar at a grocery store although the turns at a grocery store are higher. I found a pizza store cost model on a thread a couple of years ago where I could change the labor cost and watch the impact on the cost of a pizza. The same change from $10 to $15 changed the pizza cost by eleven cents (again, 2%).

If I use the high end estimate, a $100 grocery bill becomes $102. I don't think anyone will drive across town for $2, that wouldn't even cover the gas. That income will dramatically help those at the low end of the scale pay the bills, stay in their homes, maybe even stimulate the economy by buying a little more. I think this is a win, glad to hear the workers and the store came to an agreement.

Simple to get what they want - they want more benefits and pay; the company was looking at their bottom line to please shareholders - the two fell short of each other; so the union decided to have the employees picket to try to get as much as they could.

Each party is simply looking out for what they think is best for them. They are not concerned about the overall economy and the impact that potential rising prices (if this all results in increased costs to the company) will have - and I doubt any are even looking at the longer term potential impacts this could have on them personally. - Maybe the corporation overall as I imagine they do a long term analysis as well as short term.

However, as an individual worker most are short sighted and tend to look at the immediate impact on them and their lives - in their defense some can only look at the short term as they are living pay check to pay check. What they see is my health care premiums are going to go up; my pay is not going up as high and my husband whose company also provides health care will have to get it through his company now and their benefits are not as good. I am going to have less $$ now. I know this is what I went through - over the last 5 years or so once Obamacare came into place each year my net pay (besides last year) went down due to the rising cost of health care - this is similar to many employees. The company took some of the costs, the employees took some of the rising costs.

Few of these workers consider or perhaps may not understand that if after the result of all this - is prices could go up in their store and then less people shop there because two miles down the street piggly wiggly is on average 5% cheaper than their store resulting in the need for less employees or any other cost saving things the company will do resulting in less employees, move to more part time vs full time or some combination.

Like these employees I will do what is best for me and my family. As much as I "like" this particular store, if I find as a result it is going to save me more money, I will go to Shaws on the other side of town for example. They also have rewards programs that I can easily sign up for. Not sure the impact yet, it may be minimal, it may be larger than that.

Even though most people respected the picket, from what I read this picket has not been overall popular in the opinions of the consumers. Only time will tell for sure.

The union is claiming victory, but it's not much. They only managed to
preserve, not increase, medical and pension benefits and the pay increase is
about the same or less than the rate of inflation. And this is only for
current workers. The agreement is two-tiered. New employees will get less.

From where I sit, it looks like Stop & Shop came out just fine.

And why must they avoid getting upset?

They can get as upset as they want. All normal people get upset.

George wrote:

They can get as upset as they want. All normal people get upset.

So what? What does that have to do with economic politics?